The Grapes of Wrath Quotes

"A forty-acre cropper and he ain’t been dusted out and he ain’t been tractored out?"…"Croppers going fast now," he said. "One cat’ takes and shoves ten families out. Cat’s all over hell now. Tear in and shove the croppers out. How’s your old man hold on?"

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 2. The truck driver’s comments on Tom Joad’s father are foreshadowing of the shock discovery Tom will make in Chapter 6 – the abandonment of his family farm house. A "cat’" is a Caterpiller tractor, which is being used by the landowners and banks to force poor tenant farmers off the land.

"Now don’t get sore. I just like to notice things. Makes the time pass."
"I’ll tell you anything. Name’s Joad, Tom Joad. Old man is ol’ Tom Joad." His eyes rested broodingly on the driver.
"Don’t get sore. I didn’t mean nothin’."
"I don’t mean nothin’ neither," said Joad. "I’m just tryin’ to get along without shovin’ nobody around."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 2. Tom Joad, who is just released from prison, is irritated at the truck driver’s constant questions about him. Tom being an honest person discloses who he is and who is father is and says that he is just trying to get along without getting into trouble. The driver explains that he means no harm, but merely wants to chat to make the time pass. This chapter shows how lonely and isolated both characters feel. Tom is a private person and reacts defensively to the driver’s interrogation.

A grasshopper flipped through the window and lighted on top of the instrument panel, where it sat and began to scrape its wings with its angled jumping legs. Joad reached forward and crushed its hard skull-like head with his fingers, and he let it into the wind stream out the window.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 2. When a grasshopper flies into the cab of the truck, Tom Joad has a different response than the driver, who pushed a bee back out the window after it flew in. Tom’s violent nature springs into action as he crushes the grasshopper’s head. The grasshopper is symbolic of just how unjustly and inhumanely migrants are treated when they move west to California – they are crushed by the landowners and banks.

"I ain’t a nosy guy."
"The hell you ain’t," said Joad. "That big old nose of yours been stickin’ out eight miles ahead of your face. You had that big nose goin’ over me like a sheep in a vegetable patch."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 2. Tom Joad is frustrated and annoyed at what he sees as the truck driver’s nosiness. He uses a simile to compare the driver’s big nose going all over him to a sheep in a vegetable patch. Freshly paroled Tom, affected by the isolation of prison, is touchy about a stranger’s repeated attempts to elicit information about him.

"You can tell about it in every joint from here to Texola." He smiled. "So long, fella. You been a good guy. But look, when you been in stir a little while, you can smell a question comin’ from hell to breakfast. You telegraphed yours the first time you opened your trap."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 2. Tom Joad makes this comment after telling the driver that he was given a seven-year prison sentence for killing a man, but was sprung in four for good behavior. Tom tells him that he knew from the moment the driver started asking questions, he wanted to know where Tom was coming from wearing brand new cheap clothing and carrying no belongings.

The concrete highway was edged with a mat of tangled, broken, dry grass, and the grass heads were heavy with oat beards to catch on a dog’s coat, and foxtails to tangle in a horse’s fetlocks, and clover burrs to fasten in sheep’s wool; sleeping life waiting to be spread and dispersed, every seed armed with an appliance of dispersal, twisting darts and parachutes for the wind, little spears and balls of tiny thorns, and all waiting for animals and for the wind, for a man’s trouser cuff or the hem of a woman’s skirt, all passive but armed with appliances of activity, still, but each possessed the anlage of movement.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 3. The opening lines of the chapter describe a harsh and wild environment full of obstacles – a landscape the land turtle has to navagate. We learn that the highway is edged with dry grasses and weeds, which symbolize life’s difficulties. But the land also has a strong reproductive capacity. Grasses and plants have made a symbiotic bargain with animal and human life to help spread and propogate new life. The natural instinct of survival and ability of the human race to regenerate despite obstacles is one of the themes featured in this beautiful passage.

The sun lay on the grass and warmed it, and in the shade under the grass the insects moved, ants and ant lions to set traps for them, grasshoppers to jump into the air and flick their yellow wings for a second, sow bugs like little armadillos, plodding restlessly on many tender feet. And over the grass at the roadside a land turtle crawled, turning aside for nothing, dragging his high-domed shell over the grass.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 3. Nature goes about its business in this survive or die environment for small insect life. Sow bugs, or woodlice, are compared in a simile to miniature armadillos. This passage symbolizes the tough environment that sharecroppers like the Joads face, often stepped on like insects and abused by people from a higher social class. The land turtle is a metaphor for the Joads’ upcoming journey to California.

As the embankment grew steeper and steeper, the more frantic were the efforts of the land turtle. Pushing hind legs strained and slipped, boosting the shell along, and the horny head protruded as far as the neck could stretch. Little by little, the shell slid up the embankment until at last a parapet cut straight across its line of march, the shoulder of the road, a concrete wall four inches high. As though they worked independently the hind legs pushed the shell against the wall. The head upraised and peered over the wall to the broad smooth plain of cement. Now the hands, braced on top of the wall, strained and lifted, and the shell came slowly up and rested its front end on the wall.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 3. A land turtle slowly climbs up a steep embankment to get to the highway. The turtle represents isolation and struggle. It is a metaphor for and symbolizes the Joad family and other migrant families searching for a way out of their poverty and homelessness. The turtle’s journey demonstrates persistence in the face of adversity, hope in the face of hopelessness.

She saw the turtle and swung to the right, off the highway, the wheels screamed and a cloud of dust boiled up.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 3. A woman sedan driver shows her humanity when she spares the turtle’s life by swinging to the right off the highway to avoid hitting it. The car is personified here – "the wheels screamed." It should also be pointed out that the woman’s kindness is in stark contrast to the male driver who soon after tries to run down the turtle. Vulnerable migrants like the Joads will also meet compassionate people on their epic journey west to California, as foreshadowed by this passage.

And now a light truck approached, and as it came near, the driver saw the turtle and swerved to hit it. His front wheel struck the edge of the shell, flipped the turtle like a tiddly-wink, spun it like a coin, and rolled it off the highway.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 3. While the woman driver goes out of her way to avoid striking the turtle, the truck driver doesn’t. We learn in a simile how the animal is flipped "like a tiddly-wink" as the driver cruelly and deliberately hits it. The truck incident is a metaphor for the people who want to hurt the Joads and other migrant workers and is foreshadowing of the inhumanity that they will meet on their journey west.

The wild oat head fell out and three of the spearhead seeds stuck in the ground. And as the turtle crawled on down the embankment, its shell dragged dirt over the seeds.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 3. The turtle finally succeeds in reaching the embankment on the other side of the highway. In doing so the turtle also plays its part in spreading new life. An oat beard stuck to the turtle’s shell falls to the ground and the animal drags dirt over the seeds, so giving new life to them. The turtle’s journey is a metaphor for the struggles of migrant workers like the Joads, demonstrating that adversity can be overcome with perseverance and there is hope of a new life for them in California.

Joad took a few steps, and the flourlike dust spurted up in front of his new yellow shoes, and the yellowness was disappearing under gray dust.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4. Gray is the color that symbolizes hopelessness in The Grapes of Wrath. Here gray dust covers Tom’s new yellow shoes, with yellow and gold being the colors of hope and prosperity in the novel. The slipping away of hope for people like Tom of being able to begin new and normal lives in the face of the Dust Bowl disaster is foreshadowed here.

"Yes, sir, that’s my Saviour,
Je-sus is my Saviour,
Je-sus is my Saviour now.
On the level
‘S not the devil,
Jesus is my Saviour now."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4. Jim Casy makes his appearance in the novel, singing a parody song about Jesus which is meant to mock organized Christianity. He sings it to the tune of "Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby" and it demonstrates his inner conflict. Once a passionate evangelist, he is no longer the Reverend Jim Casy, because he has become disillusioned with organized religion. He, like Tom Joad, is one of the most important characters in the novel.

It was a long head, bony; tight of skin, and set on a neck as stringy and muscular as a celery stalk. His eyeballs were heavy and protruding; the lids stretched to cover them, and the lids were raw and red. His cheeks were brown and shiny and hairless and his mouth full – humorous or sensual. The nose, beaked and hard, stretched the skin so tightly that the bridge showed white.

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4. Here we get a physical description of Jim Casy, not unlike the description of the turtle in the previous chapter. Both have a bony head, the turtle has "fierce" eyes and Casy’s are "heavy and protruding," while Casy’s nose is said to be "beaked and hard." Casy is a one-time Christian preacher turned humanist, who is the moral voice of the novel. The description of his eyeballs as "heavy and protruding" suggests that he can perhaps see things others cannot. A simile in this passage compares his stringy, muscular neck to a celery stalk.

"I was a preacher," said the man seriously. "Reverend Jim Casy – was a Burning Busher. Used to howl out the name of Jesus to glory. And used to get an irrigation ditch so squirmin’ full of repented sinners half of ’em like to drowned. But not no more," he sighed. "Jus Jim Casy now. Ain’t got the call no more. Got a lot of sinful idears – but they seem kinda sensible."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4. Jim Casy, once a follower of the Burning Bush sect, a breakaway group from the Methodists, has lost his faith. The theme of isolation is presented here, as the reformed evangelist abandons organized religion and rejects his former calling. He says that he is just plain Jim Casy now. Admitting to flipping his ideological thinking, he is now considering some "sinful" ideas that appear "sensible" to him. He is undergoing a spiritual crisis.

"I ain’t preachin’ no more much. The sperit ain’t in the people much no more; and worse’n that, the sperit ain’t in me no more. ‘Course now an’ again the sperit gets movin’ an’ I rip out a meetin’, or when folks sets out food, I give ’em a grace, but my heart ain’t in it. I on’y do it ’cause they expect it."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4. A Christ-like figure in <em>The Grapes of Wrath</em>, Jim Casy even the same initials as Jesus – J.C. He is the novel’s spiritual and moral spokesman. He was once a highly popular and respected preacher but has now lost his calling.

"I used ta get the people jumpin’ an’ talkin’ in tongues and glory-shoutin’ till they just fell down an’ passed out. An’ some I’d baptize to bring ’em to. An’ then – you know what I’d do? I’d take one of them girls out in the grass, an’ I’d lay with her. Done it ever’ time. Then I’d feel bad, an’ I’d pray an’ pray, but it didn’t do no good. Come the next time, them an’ me was full of the sperit, I’d do it again."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4. Jim Casy explains to Tom Joad why he stopped being an evangelical minister. After successfully rousing his congregation and baptizing people, he would commit the unholy and sinful act of taking one of the girls out into the fields to have sex with her. Although remorseful for abusing his position and taking advantage of women, he admits to repeatedly doing it.
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